Atty. Harris Tarnue, BWI’s Principal
By Moses M. Tokpah, mosesmtokpah@gmail.com
KAKATA, Liberia- The Principal and Executive Officer (EO) of the Booker T. Washington Institute in Kakata City, Margibi County, Harris Fomba Tarnue has renewed call for more budgetary support to the entity ahead of the 2020/2021 budget hearing.
Atty. Tarnue in an interview with Journalists on Thursday, September 3, 2020 said the institution is seriously challenged when it comes to budgetary support.
In the last two years, the BWI budget has been drastically reduced, he reports.
This is said to be worse for four to five years, thereby reminding the Liberian Government of its obligation to support education and to insure that the young people are educated especially at BWI.
The BWI Boss revealed that during the 2019/2020 fiscal year, the institution got an approved operational fund around US$750,000 but because of the tight nature of the flow of revenue it regrettably actualized around US$56,000.
Atty. Tarnue termed it as dismal and disappointing to the quality of program and service the institution wants to deliver thereby hampering its operation to a larger extend.
He intoned that the rest of the students are supposed to be returning by October to finish the school year but the administration is stranded because it has no funding to continue to run the school to finish up the school year.
He also expressed the need for actual cash flow stating that it is one thing to allocate money to BWI for a school year but at the end of the fiscal period the institution receives less than the amount being budgeted describing it as a serious challenge.
At the same time, Atty. Tarnue argued that BWI is moving towards 100-years as such; there must be a way to keep the school sustained and move it to meet the national demand for manpower training and capacity building for the younger generation adding that this cannot be done without adequate financial support.
BWI Principal: “And so the records are not good as far as the supports are from my national government and this is not strange because this is national economic situation we face right now in this Country, we are all aware of the challenges we face.
In fact just after the Ebola crisis the economic was hit hard and then everything went down, we lost a lot intern of export earning in this country and to make thing worse, the COVID-19 hit us last year December actually in March this year we were hit as a country with COVID-19 so that has paralyzed the entire economic outturn of our country and so we are no exception to feeling the economic downward turn of the national economic downturn” he indicates.
Mr. Tarnue said he hopes and will continue to make a plead and appeal to national government to see reason to support BWI because the institution is very strategy interns of providing manpower development for the Country stating ‘we cannot do less than what is expected of us as a country and as an institution’.
He said even though the country and its people are face with crisis but they must prioritize education and training of the young people because this also has security implication. The BWI Principal recounts that the more the young people are trained, they better they are equipped and can find job and become entrepreneurs and they help to contribute to the national economic and even restore peace and stability wherever they find themselves as young people.
Atty. Tarnue averred that the school is getting lot of international attention to support it but equally so the government must play her part and show that it is ready to contribute to the appeal being made to the international partners that she (government) is prepared to move the country forward by putting her money into education.
He indicated that he is glad that other stakeholders are beginning to support their call that government increases its budgetary support to education.
Having submitted a proposed budget in the tone of about US$780.000 for fiscal year 2020/2021, Atty. Tarnue has expressed hope of getting substantial amount to be able to run the institution for the coming school year.
Mr. Tarnue however, said he is engaging the different Lawmakers especially members of the budget committee in ensuring that BWI gets what it needs to operate for the next school year.